On February 2 and 3, the Saint Francis Model United Nations club (SFMUN) attended the 53rd Santa Clara Valley Model United Nations (SCVMUN) conference at Santa Teresa High School. Twenty Lancers, forming eleven groups, participated, winning a total of five awards. This was the first Model UN conference Lancers have attended since pre-COVID, as the club restarted this year.

The team started preparing for the conference in September, learning the basics of parliamentary procedure and Model UN speeches, writing position papers, and drafting resolutions. Because it was all but two people’s first times attending a conference, the lessons were crucial in fully preparing everybody for the environment. That being said, Avani Thakur (’27) stated, “I think the most helpful way to understand conferences is by just going to the conference itself and putting yourself into that environment.”

SCVMUN, the second largest high school conference on the West Coast, usually has over a thousand delegates split over fourteen committees, and delegations (partner delegates) from the same school are nearly all placed in separate committees. The event took place from 5:30 P.M. to 10:30 P.M. on Friday and from 8:30 A.M. to 4 P.M. on Saturday. Thus, most Lancer delegations went the entire conference, except for meal breaks, without seeing familiar faces.

This unique experience is something that cannot be replicated on campus, which is why the club said that SCVMUN was supposed to be first a learning experience before an opportunity to win awards. Tarun Prakash (’27), who participated as a single delegate, noted that despite being nervous for the conference, “it was a ton of fun,” and he was able to understand “a lot more about the procedure of the conference.”

However, four of the eleven groups still won awards, with three groups winning their committee’s Best Research Award, which prizes delegations on a well-researched, well-presented position paper. Thakur, who, along with her partner, represented the delegation of Vietnam in the Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural committee, said that winning the award “was a great ending to our first conference ever!” Edla Lahtiranta (’25), the delegate with whom I partnered, added, “I didn’t really expect to get any, but getting Best Research and Verbal Commendation felt really good and definitely is a solid motivator.”

Overall, the SFMUN team is excited for future conferences and ready to use SCVMUN LIII as a learning experience. Freshman Bethany Ma and junior Andrea Chow aim to prepare and research better for the next conference, but both had fun, and Chow “can’t wait to attend another one!”